A SCIENTIST HAS ITS SAY

A SCIENTIST HAS ITS SAY

“JASON WILLS”: I noticed a book review of yours on the New York Times bestseller by Anita Moorjani, DYING TO BE ME. [In a coma suffering from the final stages of terminal cancer, she had a near-death experience after which she was free of cancer – as verified by her oncologists and independent researchers. During the years since, no cancer has returned.] Your own book, THE LITTLEST CRUSADE, was mentioned. Its basic message, to be believed or otherwise, supports what Moorjani discovered. However her account leaves a great number of questions completely unanswered that would interest most readers. I feel her book is substantially incomplete. As an international author examining more or less the same subjects, you may be placed to evaluate her claims in detail or help others do so.

Is the phenomenon to be taken seriously? Moorjani is not a healthcare professional able to evaluate alternative explanations. Patients who report a near-death experience relate quite different events. Why? Facts are facts, and must be supported by replicated scientific evidence.

DES: Her book is a personal account of her life before, during and after her near-death experience (NDE). It does not pretend to discuss other issues. Rather, Anita explores the mindset, attitudes and emotions which encourage the growth of cancer, and those which destroy cancer. In other words she looks back and identifies what caused her own cancer and what removed it – inspired insights given to her as she lay in a coma with hours apparently to live. So far as probing, analytical questions go, which were given to me and included in THE LITTLEST CRUSADE (TLC), they are not part of Anita Moorjani’s experience.

What questions am I talking about? If you have looked through my website, or read TLC, there is little I can add. It is all quite simple. However I have just finished reading another book on near-death experiences (this one also a New York Times bestseller), written by the eminent neurosurgeon Eben Alexander, MD. Dr Alexander explored the world of the NDE after his own experience – both appalling and inspiring – changed him from a sceptic to a crusader whose story has transformed lives.

His account is described in PROOF OF HEAVEN: A NEUROSURGEON’S JOURNEY INTO THE AFTERLIFE (Simon and Schuster Paperbacks; New York; 2012). Both, however, are eclipsed by the first books on NDEs to gain international scientific attention, those written by Raymond A. Moody, MD, Ph.D. Dr Moody interviewed and researched 1,000 patients who reported near-death experiences. Moody himself may be uniquely qualified to pass judgment on the efficacy of these claims. He obtained a Ph.D. in psychology from the Univ. of West Georgia and later became a professor in the faculty. After obtaining his MD he worked as a forensic psychiatrist. Later he was appointed Professor of Consciousness Studies at the Univ. of Nevada. In 1992 he won a prize at the New York Film Festival in the Human Relations category, for a TV documentary on his books on NDEs.

It can therefore be concluded that Moorjani can rely on specialist academic support. As for my latest book (THE LITTLEST CRUSADE) and its associated website, I was able to draw on a lifetime as a psychic and many decades as a neurotherapist in the mental healthcare system, to channel information that answers almost any question relating to near-death experiences. Amazon.com/books evaluates my book.

All this notwithstanding, is the threshold of “scientific evidence” reached to justify the claims of Anita Moorjani and others?

To start with, what are we to make of the Holy Grail referred to as “scientific evidence”?

Consider: Turning back time, the most respected scientists in the world are instructing the population – uneducated, intelligentsia and specialists alike – who listen in awe. “It has been scientifically proven that blowflies are produced from rotten meat. As it breaks down, eggs and then maggots form within the decaying matter, and give rise to adult flies. This is where blowflies come from. A natural cycle of life can therefore be seen creating itself.

Another claim that was paraded before the world as absolute, undeniable, and scientifically proven, was that no human being, throughout the history of the species, would ever travel at a speed exceeding 25 miles per hour (I have seen various figures, all below 100 miles per hour), because to do so would crush the cardiovascular system and cause death.

Of course these assertions are rubbish. As time passes and science evolves, other “facts” come and go, trumpeted as true and proven, only to be discarded as more modern principles take their place. And so on. Common sense tells us this will continue. There is no such thing as unchangeable scientific proof. What is revered as proven, absolute, replicated, generally accepted reality today, will be derided as a pitiful joke by the next generation or the one after.

Perhaps Anita Moorjani is justified in shrugging off her many “scientific” detractors.

Desmond Long was born during the Second World War in Blenheim, New Zealand, where his father was stationed before being posted to Guadalcanal with the American Air Force. The following 17 years were spent in the tiny village of Murchison, perched in the northern reaches of the Southern Alps, where he was the oldest child of the generation. Five years as a trainee in the Royal New Zealand Navy followed. Then came a career in marine electronics, which segued into psychology and eventually a fulltime practice.
Desmond has always “played with words”, and had a number of short stories published in the United States and Australia.
He describes himself as an open-minded skeptic who respects every viewpoint, but goes on to honor the belief structure he most admires.
“BEYOND” was previously published as The Littlest Crusade.